Friday, July 27, 2007

Friday, July 20, 2007

My nephew Stiehl LOVES his cousin Aaron. While we have been visiting here in Missouri, Stiehl has followed Aaron around, pretty much copying everything he does. Stiehl would also follow Aaron around with his arms outstretched for hugs. How cute is that? Here is a photo I snapped where Aaron didn't look too happy to reciprocate:

It has been so much fun having the boys together the past couple weeks. They are only six months apart in age, but this has really been the first time they have been able to play together because they are both walking, which I think levels the field quite a bit. We also got to spend a lot of time with my niece Emilie, who has turned into quite the little momma for the boys. You would never know that she is only ten years old; she has matured way beyond that age. I'm going to miss them all when we head back to California on Sunday.

Unless you live under a rock, you probably know that tonight at midnight is the release date for the seventh and final installment of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling; this one entitled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Even though I don't think I am as crazy about Harry Potter as some people (like, for example, this person. I love Miss Zoot.), I do find myself shielding my eyes now every time I log onto the Internet. I am really afraid that I will learn the ending by the random leaks and discussions that people write on the Web. Not fair but 'tis the world we live in. I pre-ordered my copy back in March, and it should be arriving tomorrow to my house (keep it safe for me until I get home, Bill!) but please, please, please, fellow Blog people. Don't give away the ending if you happen to finish it this weekend!!!! I have a two-year-old that will probably only allow me a couple chapters a day at most!!

Monday, July 16, 2007

Aaron and I are in Missouri right now visiting family. Yahoo! Even though I was just here in February, I guess it was still too winter-y to realize how much more green stuff grows here than in the desert. Of course, it is much more sticky here than at home in CA but whatever! I love Missouri.

The second day we were in San Diego, we went to Sea World. We didn't really have enough time to see everything there is to see since we only had the morning to work with before we needed to go back to the room for Aaron's afternoon snooze. As it turned out, this was O.K. because Sea World isn't really all that toddler-friendly anyway. We saw two shows - Believe (Shamu Show) and Dolphin Discovery - and Aaron was so scared that he clung to me for dear life the entire time during both shows. I thought the shows were totally awesome, though! And, actually, his being scared selfishly helped us out a bit because he stayed still long enough for us to watch them both!

After the shows, we went to the Shark Encounter exhibit that had an underground portion where you could walk through a see-through tube in the middle of the shark tank. It was pretty cool! But the walkway was on a conveyor belt, which meant you couldn't stand there and look, you had to keep moving. Oh well. This is the only picture we took at Sea World 'cause I'm just that lame.

During the first week of Bill's break from school, we drove down to San Diego and spent five days there with Grandma and Grandpa Q. The first day we were there, we went to the San Diego Zoo. We weren't really all that impressed with the Zoo; a lot of the animals were missing ("So are there dinosaurs in your dinosaur park?" Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. Love him.) and there was some construction. I had heard that the Wild Animal Park was better than the Zoo, so I guess we should have listened but, anyway, we had a good time looking at the animals that were there - both real and fake.

Sign in the front...it looks like there were a lot of people there, but it actually wasn't that crowded. It was really nice.

Baby ducks!

How Aaron spent half the time...

The camels.

Comin' at ya!

Checking stuff out...happy to be out of the stroller!This was also right before the hat embargo. Why the embargo? Because he can, of course!

Warthogs! Ewww...gross! Actually they were pretty cool.

Pretty stained glass in the middle of the park.

Aaron lovin' on the fake gorillas.

Aaron lovin' on the real goat.

Bill and I in front of the crazy elephant topiary.

Grandma and Grandpa Q with Aaron in front of the crazy elephant topiary.